Bvlgari has launched Man Black Orient, a new flanker to 2014’s Man in Black, which was a flanker to 2010’s Bvlgari Man. Man Black Orient follows the recently introduced Man Black Cologne…
Bvlgari Man Black Cologne ~ new fragrance
Bvlgari has launched Man Black Cologne, a new ‘ultra-contemporary’ masculine fragrance. Man Black Cologne is a flanker to 2014’s Man in Black, which was a flanker to 2010’s Bvlgari Man…
Top 10 Spring Fragrances 2016
I am vocal about disliking spring. Where I live, there are always a few days in late February that feel like an elaborate set-up from Punk’d. Like newborn babes, they come: the office mates, friendly neighbors, the recently retired. They peer up into the warming blue and wonder aloud, trying to remember which way a hapless groundhog waddled weeks ago. Please don’t take spring’s bait. This year it snowed in April in the colder areas of Europe and North America and fans and news writers seemed to blame poor departed Prince. Let’s face it, in Minneapolis anyway, it usually snows in April. And snow can be the least of our worries. I am a fan of heterogeneity — I like mixed drinks and mixed company, for example — but few phrases freeze the heart faster than that euphemism “mixed precipitation”. Spring also brings wind, rain, seasonal allergies and skies the color of dead fish. Yes, the vernal months provoke a rare ire in me.
And yet, looking over my April 2011 Top 10 and Robin’s post from last year on pretty spring florals, I’ve realized I have little cause to be so sour while wearing some of my favorite fragrances. Clutching roots and branches may grow from stony rubbish, as Eliot wrote, but I have hyacinth, lily-of-the-valley, magnolia, violets and iris to console me until mid-May…
Top 10 Winter Fragrances 2016
I am on record, here and elsewhere, as hating winter. The forecast for this weekend — snow, snow, and then more snow — just adds insult to injury. I’ve mostly managed to avoid the winter rotation in our seasonal Top 10 lists, but I did get stuck with it back in 2011, and reviewing that list, yes, I could easily go through the winter with just those 10 (and I am convinced I could make it through any winter with just Fendi Theorema, if I had to).
To avoid repetition with my 2011 list and the winter lists we’ve done since, I decided to come up with a cold-weather wardrobe based solely on newer fragrances…and then once I’d decided on my 10, I realized, too late, that this post is essentially an abridged and annotated version of the Best of 2015. So much for good intentions. If you have some new ideas for winter, do comment! And do check out the lists at Bois de Jasmin, Grain de Musc and The Non-Blonde…
Bvlgari Goldea ~ perfume review
Goldea is the latest pillar from Bvlgari. Its “jeweled bottle”, according the the brand, “incarnates the gold and the sun”, and it was also inspired by the “powerful symbol” of Serpenti.1 The juice, developed by perfumer Alberto Morillas, is described as “a bright, golden musk symphony”. I was cheered by the news that it was geared towards older women, that is, 30+, which is about as “older” as the fragrance industry is usually willing to go, but perhaps a little dismayed by the name — Goldea? Now taking votes, does anyone like that name? — and the commercial with Isabeli Fontana, which looks like something Guerlain might have done in the 1980s, and is very nearly as corny as the name.
Anyway, the idea of a “golden musk symphony” is reasonably well represented by the floriental fragrance, so long as you like your golden musk symphonies a bit on the sweetish side…